CHICOPEE - Dozens of teachers are expected to attend the School Committee meeting Wednesday night to show their displeasure with the contract proposals offered and to protest the impasse in negotiations.

The Chicopee Education Association has been negotiating with the School Committee since February to replace a new contract for the about 700 teachers. The contract expired June 30.

Negotiations were suspended over the summer. In September the committee and teachers set up four meetings with the goal of finalizing negotiations at the end of October, said Charles Clark, the association president and a teacher at Chicopee High School.

"We got to the third meeting and there was no movement," he said.

While School Committee officials say it was the union which asked to go to arbitration with an outside party, union officials said it was the committee that called for arbitration.

School Committee vice chairwoman Marjorie A. Wojcik said the negotiations have been complicated by the fact that the schools faced a tight budget for this year and had to take creative steps to avoid laying off staff.

Next year is expected to be equally difficult financially. The fact that new Gov. Charlie Baker will take over in January adds to the complexity because no one is sure how much funding he will support for education. Currently about 75 percent of the Chicopee school budget if funded with state money, Wojcik said.

The association has received one offer, which is unacceptable to union members. The proposal calls for adding eight steps to bring the existing 10-step pay scale. People ascend up the steps and increase pay grades as they grow in experience, Clark said.

The Patrolmen's union agreed to a similar deal recently that added eight pay steps to their pay scale, giving the union 12 steps. The deal was finalized Tuesday when the City Council agreed to fund the additional $121,000 needed to fund the contract for the first six months of the deal, which begins Jan. 1.

But teachers say they are not interested in a similar change in their contract. The problem is the newest teachers would see a decline in pay. Over a 30-year career, there would be a $60,000 loss in pay, Clark said.

"The bottom line if we lose good teachers in Chicopee it will compromise the education system," Clark said.

Along with other problems, the proposal would create a division in the union because it lowers the salaries of the least experienced teachers and raises the pay of the most experienced, he said.

"The issues are about time and money," he said.

The union is also trying to find a way to help teachers find time to deal with the excessive increase in paperwork that comes with the new state evaluation system and the introduction of the national Common Core standards, Clark said.

"There needs to be time in the day to deal with the increased paperwork," he said.